The video says it all, but read on below for a bit more background: [HTML1] That’s SEAL Cmdr. Chris Cassidy aboard the International Space Station, giving a quick glimpse (very quick, thanks to sped-up video with an appropriately lighthearted soundtrack) at how to shave one’s head in zero gravity. Key quote: “I don’t think I’ve looked like this since Plebe Summer.” The 1993 Naval Academy grad shed his hair late last month in anticipation of the arrival of Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut who, well … who saves on barbershop bills. Parmitano and two other flight engineers arrived aboard the…
Browsing: Space travel
The biggest attraction at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium Tuesday was not on the day’s agenda. Just before 10 a.m., the crowd at the convention center south of Washington began to thin out. People headed outside and looked toward the Potomac River. Soon enough, the space shuttle Discovery flew by, piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747. The shuttle was traveling from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to a Smithsonian-owned hangar just outside the city. It actually made two passes.
A tip of the hat to the Navy and its Facebook notifications for the reminder that today marked the 50th anniversary of an event frozen in the minds of many Americans of a (ahem!) certain age: the day Navy Cmdr. Alan Shepard became the first American launched into space. His feat captivated the nation, and won back some American pride bruised by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin beating him into space by 23 days. The Naval Academy grad and jet test pilot had in 1959 become one of the original Mercury astronauts — the guys with the “Right Stuff,” as Tom…
